As David Cameron himself rued today, it has been four weeks in row of NHS questions from Ed Miliband.

Amid the bitter debate, both sides of the House have taunted each other – reeling off names of high profile support or opposition for the Bill and slinging out statistics at high speed.

Well it’s time for a check-up. Who’s behind the Bill, and who’s against it? FactCheck does a roll call.

The Labour leader picked off a great list of industry organisations that he said have “come out against this bill” in recent weeks.

We asked all of them what their official line on the Bill is.

The Royal College of General Practitioners: opposed

David Cameron claimed: “Let me give him the actual figures. There are 44,000 members of the Royal College of GPs. Out of a total of 44,000 just 7 per cent responded opposing the bill…”

As a body, the RCGP called on the Prime Minister to withdraw the Health Bill on 3 February. Though Mr Cameron got his figures right, there’s some jiggery pokery with the figures here.

Firstly there was no official ballot. To say that 7 per cent are against the Bill, implies that 93 per cent were for it. This isn’t true. The numbers Mr Cameron quotes refers to a snapshot survey that the RCGP emailed to its 44,000 members over Christmas – 7 per cent of the members responded; and of those 98 per cent were opposed to the Bill.

Royal College of Physicians: neither for or against

The RCP held an Extraordinary General Meeting on Monday at which 79 per cent of those attending voted to ballot fellows on whether to withdraw support for the Bill. A spokesman told FactCheck that a strong opinion either way will be taken extremely seriously by the council. Until then, the College remains neither for nor against the Bill. However, the spokesman said that it has “serious concerns” about elements of the bill and has secured a “fair few” amendments already from engaging with the government.

British Geriatric Society: opposed

The BGS called on government to withdraw the Bill on Monday 27 February after informal discussions with their 2,481 members – which include 1,300 consultants.

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health: opposed

The RCPCH called on government to withdraw the Bill on 23 February after holding a vote – 14.5 per cent of its members turned out for the vote or 1,492 – with 79 per cent calling for “outright withdrawal” of the Bill rather than to continue to push for amendments.

The Royal College of Nursing: opposed

The RCN called for the health bill to be dropped on 20 January after a discussion of its council. The move has not been opposed by its members.

The Royal College of Midwives: opposed

The RCM called for the government to scrap the Bill on 19 January, calling it a “massively expensive distraction from the challenges that the NHS faces”. The decision to oppose the Bill was an executive management call in line with the opinions of its 40,000 members.

The Royal College of Radiologists: oppose the bill in its current form

The RCR opposed the Bill “in its current form” on 27 January, and told FactCheck today that it held an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 16 February during which it tabled a motion to publically call for a withdrawal of the Bill. Of around 50 fellows who attended, 36 were in favour; 10 against and three abstained. The RCR is now carrying out a survey of their 8,900 members – the results due in a few days at which point the RCR will update its position.

The Faculty of Public Health: opposed

The FPH called on government to withdraw the bill on 8 February after holding an EGM at the end of January. The group told FactCheck that the majority of 200 attendees “wanted us to change our position”. Meanwhile, of the FPH’s 3,300 members, 40 per cent took part in a survey – and three quarters of those called on FPH to demand the complete withdrawal of the Health Bill.

Royal College of Physiotherapy: opposed

Mr Cameron claimed that opposition from the RCP was minimal. He said: “And what about the Royal College of Physiotherapists – 50,000 (members) – 2 per cent (opposed)…”

Again, there’s some massaging of the physiotherapy figures here – the RCP also withdrew its support for the Bill on 3 February. What Mr Cameron is referring to is an online opinion poll the RCP did in May last year – 1,175 of the 50,000 members took part in the poll and of that 81 per cent opposed the reforms.

Phil Gray, chief executive of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, told FactCheck: “David Cameron can quote as many figures out of context as he likes but cannot escape the central fact that his government’s proposals are almost universally opposed by professionals in the NHS.

“Like other professional bodies, we have lobbied for more than a year in parliament to get the Government to amend the Health Bill, which seriously threatens the future of the NHS, but they refused to make any significant changes.”

The Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association (part of Unite): opposed

The CPHVA, which has 18,200 members (20 per cent of Unite’s Health Sector members) called for the Bill to be withdrawn on 8 February.

The Patients’ Association: opposes the bill in its current form

The PA has never come out and said the Bill should be scrapped – but it does argue that it “needs to be rewritten”. The PA is against many of the reforms and the way they are being implicated, which it believes could have “serious ramifications”. It is heavily involved in the listening exercise with its 5,000 e-members.

Cameron’s comeback

Mr Cameron brushed off Mr Miliband’s attack with his own list – of five supporters of the Bill. We’ve checked these out too.

Spokesman Dr Charles Alessi from National Association of Primary Care confirmed that his organisation, a long-time champion of the move to clinical commissioning, was indeed a supporter of the reform.

The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations website says: “ACEVO has not taken a position on the controversial health bill as a whole.”

A spokesman for the NHS Alliance told FactCheck it is supporting the bill, with qualifications: “We are supporting the clinical commissioning and CCGs, but the environment needs to be right. There are aspects of the Bill that need to be looked into. It’s not as black-and-white as people would like to think.”

The Foundation Trust Network also supports it with qualifications, telling us that the organisation “supports all aspects of the Health and Social Care Bill that will bring benefits to patients”. But the FTN warned in a statement: “The devil is now in the detail of how bits of the new system interact…unless public providers of NHS services have the flexibility they need to manage risks inherent in a system in flux, they will be ‘sitting ducks’ for failure.”

We asked the Labour peer Lord Darzi if he supported the Bill, and his spokesman replied: “no comment”.

The verdict

Of the “significant health organisations” mentioned by both Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband, opinion is weighted against the passing of the Bill.

Eight fully oppose the Bill, two are against it in its current form and three more are unwilling to take sides.

It’s also worth noting that the British Medical Association (BMA), the only doctor’s union with 150,000 members, was not mentioned by either politician. It called for the withdrawal of the Bill back in November 2011 on the basis that it is “deeply flawed”.

Of the four Mr Cameron claimed to be in support of the reforms, only the National Association of Primary Care does so without significant reservations.

As for NHS staff, only 9 per cent of them want to see the Bill passed, according to a YouGov poll last month – 65 per cent of those polled said it should be withdrawn.

With just one of Mr Cameron’s health organisations offering its “wholehearted support” for the Bill, FactCheck expects temperatures to continue to rise in this debate.

Comments

Mike Smithson
29-Feb-12at

This Factcheck supports the view that Cameron is obsessed with PR, presentation & spin. The PM does not check the facts. He really believes that if he repeats his view often enough, then it must be true.
As C4 has so aptly evidenced, a large majority of medical opinion is against this NHS Bill.
FactCheck illuminates serious issues. Why does the PM ignore evidence? Is he fit for purpose?

I have been posting for weeks on blogs about the Royal College of GP’s with 44,000 members of whom 2,600 responded to their poll. It is not fair either way to assume that those who responded are a snapshot of the rest of the membership. The lack of response cannot be assumed to be agreement with the leadership. Indeed it could also be the case that those who didn’t respond are not vehemently opposed otherwise a response would be expected.It is wrong to treat such polls in the same way as a Trades Union block vote. Clare Gerada their leader meanwhile has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, being a partner in the Hurley Medical Group large consortium of GP practices in London, and I mean big business here.

I’m sorry but the smears against Clare Gerada are nonsensical. You can throw the argument both ways depending on which side of the fence you’re on. If I wanted to counter your comment on her ‘vested interests’ I could just point to the fact that she is a GP, represents GPs and GPs are the ones who stand to gain the most from these reforms.

Why then have two CCGs also withdrawn their support? Do they have vested interests too? Why does the BMA oppose it? What about all the other groups of health professionals? Do they all have vested interests, or is here a small possibility that maybe, just maybe, the majority are worried about the quality of service and the health of the patients?

I believe that initially everyone was afraid of protesting against the Bill. No one wants to be first to stick their head above the parapet, but the growth in opposition is snowballing. Long may it continue. Any government who thinks they can get away with using dodgy statistics and misinformation nowadays should be brought to book.

Let’s have some evidence based policy for once, rather than political smears, rhetoric and ideology.

When Ministers resort to totally misleading manipulations of the figures – amounting to something close to a lie – it indicates how much this is a Bill to serve dogma & private financial interests and how little it is for the benefit of patients (or taxpayers for that matter).

CamClegg can always count on support from the Yank SuckYourBlood Inc. organisation.

They’ll support anybody who helps boost their profits, even when it means someone having to sell their home to pay medical bills.

Great credit to all those medical professionals who see this latest neocon scam for the sickening piece of hypocrisy it is.

Hopefully this bill will be consigned to the dustbin of history. If so, it will then be time to work on repealing every bit of disgusting “competition” (read: profiteering rip off on the backs of illness) introduced by CamClegg and New Labour into the NHS. Get rid of ALL of it and expose the profiteers, liars and hypocrites for what they are.

Any politician from any party who sets his/her name to this piece of barrow boy thievery should be labelled political pariah.

Of course we expect nothing better from the Tories and LibDems, but the Labour Party should never forget its working class roots and how the NHS was created and why.

Add me to the against. Why? Because I don’t trust the Tories with their market forces. If the majority of the medical profession is against the bill, I’d rather trust their judgement than Cameron and Lansley.

I’m old enough to remember when you could get spectacles on the NHS. Now they cost a fortune.

Five years ago I had an excellent NHS dentist. Then he told me that he just wasn’t able to continue giving the type of service he wanted within the NHS. To stay with him, I had to go private. Initially it was £15 per month, now it’s £32. It’s almost impossible to find an NHS dentist now.

I can forsee it won’t be long before GPs, with their private company advisers, will be going down a similar path. And imagine what they will cost.

I’ve paid into the NHS for almost 50 years – for the majority of those, I was fortunate enough not to need it. The odds are as I get older, I will need it more and more and I want it to exist in a way I can trust.

I’m sick of politicians thinking they know best. I’m even more sick of them breaking their word – no top down changes! If they lied about that, they are probably lying about privatisation and the rest of our fears.

Don’t forget the managers’ professional body, Institute of Healthcare Management, which has done a survey of its members in which at least 75% and up to 85% were against the Bill on every question asked. 82% wanted the IHSM to call for the Bill to be withdrawn. Also against the Bill is the senior managers’ union Managers in Partnership.
And don’t forget some of the “organisations” listed by Cameron like the NAPC and the NHS Alliance have very few actual members: they are primarily a vehicle for a few high-profile empire-building GPs.
There’s plenty of bliff and bluster from the Tories but where is there any evidence that they have any significant popular support anywhere, least of all among those who know anything about the NHS or have to work in it.

It is simply not true that 98% of the respondents to the January 2012 RCGP survey were against the bill.

Q4 of the survery asks: Do you think it is appropriate to seek the withdrawal of the Health and Social Care Bill?

The 1200 or so who did not answer “agree” or “strongly agree” to Q4 take themselves out of the survey (count the numbers – they dont answer Q5 or Q6). The results of Q5 and Q6 are then 98% and 90% “yes”, but only because the “no”s have already stopped answering!

In fact, 1863 voted strongly or very strongly to withdraw from an a total response of 3119 (59.7%)

In October, 1413 voted strongly or very strongly to withdraw out of a total response of 1906 (74%).

So the percentage of respondents keen to withdraw FELL substantially between Oct and Jan. Of the extra responders in Jan, more than half were against!

Oh what a mess. Funny but for the fact they have the support of the Liberal Democrats. Ultimately, regardless of the mass polite discontent being displayed now, once this groundwork bill designed to enable private profit from the NHS to grow is a passed, things will change. Slowly, ever so slowly, [Despite the odd report of the rotten service for the majority poor] a received wisdom that that there is no alternative will take root. We have the energy utilities; the rail service; etc as examples of how it works. Success for the small minded myopic Neo-Liberals yet again!

I’m still amazed that people say david Cameron is all spin! If so, he’s not very good at it.
Personally I have always thought that John Reid’s total capitulation to doctors when they asked for a massive pay rise was a disaster all round. It was bound to come back and bite when the money wasn’t pouring in any more. Most seem to forget that little episode even though the doctors themselves couldn’t believe it when he gave in to their initial demand.